


Sleepsong

by Tails89



Series: Prompt Warmups [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, The feelings are there they just gotta use their words, They're getting there, a smidge of angst, sterek-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:20:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23714284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tails89/pseuds/Tails89
Summary: When all you've known for so long is fear, how do you adjust when the world is no longer such a scary place?OrStiles can't sleep, so he calls the one person who would understand.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Prompt Warmups [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/935589
Comments: 1
Kudos: 97





	Sleepsong

_I can’t sleep._

His phone immediately begins to vibrate in his hand. Stiles swipes across to answer the call.

“Hey.”

_“Hey, you want to talk about it?”_

Stiles rolls onto his back, one arm slung over his eyes. Exhaustion weighs heavy on his body, but every time he’s about to drift off his racing heart drags him back to the surface. He can’t even pinpoint the cause of his anxiety, there’s no particular event that stands out. He’s actually had a really great week. Exams are over and he’s been home from school for four days hanging with his friends. His dad was even able to get a whole chunk of time off work.

Still, there is a cold heavy weight in the pit of his stomach and Stiles just can’t seem to turn his brain off long enough to fall asleep. It was desperation that had him picking up his phone at three thirty in the morning. He honestly hadn’t expected a response.

_“You still there?”_

“Sorry,” Stiles mumbles into the microphone. “Hey.”

There’s a soft chuckle from the other end of the line. _“You said that already. You okay?”_

“Yeah,” Stiles lets a long sigh escape. “No. I don’t know. I’m just- really, really tired.”

_“You want to talk about it?”_

“There’s not really anything to talk about. It’s stupid.” Stiles switches the call to speaker and lets the phone drop onto his pillow.

_“It’s not stupid Stiles.”_

“Yeah, it is. I don’t even know why I fucking feel like this.” The glare from his phone screen casts long shadows across the ceiling. Like fingers reaching out from the darkness, ready to grab him and pull him down.

_“Did something happen?”_

“No, nothing happened. But for the last four days it’s like… I’m constantly on edge and any moment shit is going to hit the fan.” Stiles can hear rustling through the speaker, like the person on the other side has put the phone down. Guilt crashes over him. “I’m sorry man, I shouldn’t have woken you. I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

 _“Wait.”_ More rustling and a muffled curse. _“Sorry.”_

“Why are _you_ apologising?” Stiles asks. “I’m the one who woke you. I’m just gonna- g’night Derek.” He slaps his hand on his phone screen, ending the call. This was so fucking stupid. He’d been fine all semester and as soon as he comes home, he feels like he’s drowning and can’t catch a breath.

Stiles shifts onto his side, trying to get comfortable and lets his eyes shut. He takes a long deep breath in and tries to let it out slow, begging his mind to go blank, but instead it runs through the short conversation he’d just had. He should have just said he was fine. He should have just said nothing rather than dragging another person into his misery.

An cramping hip forces Stiles’ onto his back. He lies there for an eternity before realising his eyes are open again and he’s been staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

He kicks off his sheets, finally giving up on sleep. His laptop is sitting open on his desk. Stiles figures he can watch movies or something until it’s time to get up.

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and is halfway to his desk when his window creaks open.

“Jesus, Derek!” Stiles stumbles back, tripping on a shirt he’d left lying on the floor. Its only Derek’s hand braced on his shoulder that keeps him from going completely ass over tea kettle. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You hung up on me.”

“What?”

“We hadn’t finished talking.”

“Derek,” Stiles pulls away from the werewolf. “It’s four in the morning.” He goes and sits back on his bed. He’s too tired for this.

Stiles feels the bed dip beside him, but he doesn’t look, choosing to stare at his hands instead, counting fingers.

“You haven’t been acting like yourself.” Derek’s voice is soft in the darkness. “Ever since you got home. You’ve been trying to hide it, but I know you.” Their shoulders bump together. “You can talk to me.”

“I told you. It’s stupid.” Stiles shrugs away, twisting so he can crawl back onto the bed and stretch out, back against the headboard.

“It’s not stupid.”

“It is!”

“Stiles.” Derek’s face is hidden in the shadows, but Stiles can hear the exasperation in his tone. “Can I take a wild guess?”

Stiles shrugs again, knowing the werewolf’s night vision will catch the movement.

“You’ve been at college for six months.”

“Amazing guess work Sourwolf.”

“Shh.”

“Did you seriously just shush me?”

“Let me finish.” Derek shoves at Stiles leg until the boy shuffles aside. Derek sits beside him on the bed, long legs stretched out. He’s not wearing shoes, just old sweatpants and a stretched shirt. Stiles doesn’t remember him taking his shoes off. Had he really run here in bare feet?

He can feel Derek’s attention on him. “Sorry, you were saying?”

“I was saying, you’ve been at college for six months. Before you left we spent four years dealing with rogue werewolves, kanimas, hunters-“

“Nogitsune.” Stiles shudders at the memory.

“-nogitsune, the dread doctors-”

“What’s your point?”

“My point,” Derek says, “is that since you were sixteen you’ve been dealing with these life-threatening situations every other week. It was constant and we never knew what was going to show up next. And just days after we healed the nemeton you went off to college.”

It had been an absolute shit show, those final few weeks. Stiles had almost missed the beginning of semester, laid up with a bad concussion.

“You didn’t come home for Christmas,” Derek continues. “This is the first time you’ve been back in Beacon Hills and you’ve gone back on the defensive, because that’s what you’re used to but there’s nothing to defend the town from anymore. It’s peaceful.”

“Ever since I came back, I feel like I’m constantly looking over my shoulder.” Stiles plucks at a loose thread in his sheets. “Was it the same for you?”

Derek doesn’t answer immediately. Stiles’ eyes have adjusted enough to the dark that he can make out Derek’s silhouette beside him, staring back at him.

“I’d been running for so long. First with Laura, and then with you and the pack. I didn’t know how to stop. After you left, I’d run the boarders of the territory every night making sure there were no new threats. For weeks.”

“But you got through it.”

“I got through it. And you will too.”

Stiles’ isn’t sure how to respond, so he uses his patented Stilinski avoidance technique – he changes the subject. “You know what’s amazing is how you learned how to speak in more than one-word sentences. I’m proud of you big guy.”

Derek accepts the topic change with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

Stiles opens his mouth-

“Don’t say it.“

“I was just going to-“

“I know what you were ‘just going to’.”

“You’re no fun.”

Derek makes as if to stand. “Perhaps you’re right, maybe I should head home?”

Stiles snatches at his shirt. “No, I take it back, you should stay.” He doesn’t let go when Derek settles back beside him. He lets his fingers toy with the edge of the shirt, his head rests against Derek feeling rising and falling of his breathing. It’s calming, soothing and Stiles can quickly feel his eyelids drooping.

“Thank you.”

Stiles doesn’t catch Derek’s response besides the gentle rumble in his chest.

He sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Title "Sleepsong" by Bastille
> 
> [I am on Tumblr](https://tails89.tumblr.com/)


End file.
